Easter boxes and Blood Moons

Posted on April 15, 2014 by farm2011

I had sent Kyle’s Easter box earlier last week and now it was time to work on William’s. I needed a couple of things to add to it, so I made a quick dash to town last night before the one store closed. On the way to town the sky was so weird and kind of freaky, but it was also kind of pretty. I don’t think I’ve seen when the sky was trying to rain (or SNOW) so hard but just couldn’t get the job done! And mind you I’m not complaining at all that it was unsuccessful in raining or snowing,  but I tried to snap a picture as I was driving to try to capture it.

Crazy clouds with snow or rain

Crazy clouds with snow or rain

Once I got to town and  picked up a couple of things back home I went and got William’s Easter box all ready and filled with good stuff. Some bought, but mostly homemade. It’s mailed now and I’m hoping that he gets it on Wednesday yet this week.

William's Easter Box

William’s Easter Box

I also laughed when I saw this mess on our porch when I got home from work. The peacocks like to hang out on our porch and check out what’s going on in our living room and when we’re home I swear they like to see what’s on TV. But with the new little puppy chasing just about any chicken or peacock that he can see, the only safe time to be on the porch is when the dogs are locked up which is when we’re not home. But the feathers give their daytime activities away. DSCN8292

And finally the Blood Moon. I heard so much about the Blood Moon these past days that I was thinking that I might check it out during the night. Now the key word here is ‘might’. First things first. Here is the definition of what actually a Blood Moon actually means: “The moon itself is rock and does not emanate any light of its own. The moon’s glow comes from reflected light from the sun; its position in relation to the Earth and sun is also the reason for its “changing” shape in the night sky. The moon has a tilted orbital path, which means that rather than us having an eclipse every month, total lunar eclipses happen far less frequently. As the moon passes through the center of the Earth’s shadow, known as the umbra, the moon gets significantly darker and then turns a blood red when it is fully engulfed by the Earth’s shadow. It is red “due to sunlight scattered through the earth’s atmosphere,” which reflects off the surface of the moon”  OK, now that your’e NASA smart, sounds pretty cool right? Well, I debated if I was going to get up during the night and check it out or not. I got to bed around midnight and the best time to see it according to the web was going to be around 2:20 to 2:40 am. Yea.. AM.  As I crawled into bed with my cell phone by my head and the alarm set,  I thought to myself that I’ll make the decision if I’m going to get up when the alarm goes off. It seemed just like minutes later and there was something buzzing by my head. What in the world? Well, my phone was on vibrate so it didn’t wake up Daryl and I quick shut it off. I thought am I crazy? It’s cold outside and it’s during the middle of the night, what was I thinking? So of course as I was laying there I thought to myself, well I am awake now and so I might as well get up and check it out. So I find a jacket and some flip flops and head outside. I was greeted by Little Kitty and I’m thinking no wonder he’s always so tired if he’s just walking around at 2 in the morning!! Now to find the moon. It wasn’t hard because the sky was clear and to be honest the moon was really cool! With my camera in my hand I started to take a picture of it. First my SD card was blocked for some reason so back into the house to find another card for the camera. OK, found one and back outside with Little Kitty to hang out in the farm yard trying to get a picture. Now you would think just snap a couple and call it good right? Yea, not so right. The pictures were not turning out so well and with just about every type of setting for my camera I could think of, nothing was turning out. So back inside with Little Kitty and grabbed another camera. This time some of the first pictures didn’t turn out and after a couple more I went back inside and grabbed a third camera. (yes, I keep three cameras ready at all times and if you are smirking you can just stop that now! ) And even though this was the smallest and least expensive of all my cameras, it kind of took the best picture. But thinking to myself that this didn’t make any sense at all, so back inside I went to get my remote for one of my other cameras to see if I could still take something better. After not being able to figure out the remote and with the ‘real’ alarm clock still set for work in a couple of hours, I decided to call it quits. But I laughed because when I looked at some of the photos on the web tonight, they are not perfect either. I just wished I would have known that this morning before I tried to snap a few! This is my best photo from last night. And as for the next Blood Moon coming up in a couple of months? I think I’m good and will stay in bed this next time.

Blood Moon April 15, 2014

Blood Moon April 15, 2014

And the picture of the day is the eye of one of the peacock feathers that I picked up tonight on the porch. It just amazes me that these feathers can be so beautiful.DSC_0020

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Picture of the day

Posted on April 14, 2014 by farm2011

Today’s post is only going to be the Photo of the day. I think a picture sometimes can say a lot without saying a thing.

So here is it, The Picture of the Day taken Monday morning, April 14th

Our backyard this morning

Our backyard this morning

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Still Raining…

Posted on April 13, 2014 by farm2011

With the storm passing through our area yesterday afternoon and evening, I thought for sure that it would settle down during the night. Well, that didn’t happen and this morning it as still raining when we were headed to church. They were predicting that we were supposed to get two inches of rain and we kind of laughed when they said it. I guess we probably shouldn’t have laughed. DSCN8268 Our mass is the early mass so not only was it wet this morning, but also cold. When we got to church the first thing that we saw was three big electrical repair trucks in the parking lot. Now I was pretty sure they weren’t here for mass and I was right.  The crazy lightening last night kicked out a transformer. It must have done a pretty good job with it because we ended up having the whole mass by candle light. Well, most of the mass was done with candles, even the priests had a hard time seeing with a few candles lit so they whipped out the cell phones and all was good. Now I kind of like this no lights in the morning thing. I mean, what a good gig. You don’t have to worry about combing or curling your hair and the mass did seem to move along pretty good. I’m just guessing though that this was a once in a blue moon deal though.

And then after church it rained the whole day. Daryl let the dogs out for a little bit but we didn’t want Kaiser to get too wet and then get sick, so back into the barn they went and probably slept the day away. I checked out my vegetable plants that I planted and couldn’t believe that they were actually coming up already.

Baby tomato plants just coming up

Baby tomato plants just coming up

In the past they never grew this good before, but it might have been because I usually only buy the seeds when they are at their cheapest price. Yup another example of how cheap I really am. But maybe the seeds get old or something?  I don’t know, but I’m pretty juiced about them actually growing. I was worried that they didn’t get enough light, but now I’m not moving them for nothing. I laughed when I saw this one plant that was such an over achiever. I think it’s a weed, but I’m going to wait and see for sure. DSCN8270

After cleaning some closets out and doing some laundry, we ended up the day talking to Kyle. This week went so much better than last week for him and that’s good. We’ll have to see if we can skype with William yet this week also. He won’t be home for Easter and it would be nice to see him before he heads to New York. The choir that he sings with is going to sing at Carnegie Hall for Easter. Seriously, how cool is that?

My picture of the day is a picture of our ‘Easter Eggs’.  Naturally Blue, Green, and Brown. DSCN8266

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Baby showers and Pikes Peak, McGregor Iowa

Posted on April 12, 2014 by farm2011

How fun it was to go to another baby shower today. It was a shower for one of my very good friend’s son and daughter in law’s baby. It seems like my friend was just bringing her son home much less having now a Grandson. Holy Cow! But he is just adorable and what a good baby he was for the shower. I always feel kind of bad for babies at places where there is a lot of women because the babies are going to get passed around and loved to death. But he was such a little trooper and slept pretty much the whole time, it shouldn’t have messed him up too much. It was a really fun shower and it was also nice to meet some of my friends neighbors and friends. I had a really good time and was really glad to be invited to it. Other than last week’s shower for my niece, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a shower. And now two in two weeks! Score!!DSCN8262

Since this shower wasn’t too far from the river, I decided to head to the Mississippi River to see if there were any barges on the water or just kind of what was going on. When I got to Pikes Peak in McGregor, Iowa the weather was absolutely beautiful. The radio was talking about some storms brewing, but I had a dress on with a light sweater and almost didn’t even need the sweater. On the water I saw a couple of barges further down the river when I was driving to Pikes Peak, and then there was also some docked on the side of the channel. IMG_1511 I really like going to this park because it’s so quiet the only thing that you hear is some birds and every once in awhile the train off in the distance.

Trains in town while you're driving to the park

Trains in town while you’re driving to the park

Sometimes when people come to our farm they say it’s so quiet, maybe you just get used to it when you have it every day or something. I don’t know, but you could smell the grass and trees when you were up there and I love it!IMG_1513

On the way home the weather was looking kind of funny, but I didn’t run into any bad weather until I was close to home. All of a sudden it started to rain and I thought to myself, this is a lot of rain. Then the drops got bigger and bigger and were getting kind of splotchy. Crap!! I knew that usually meant that it was going to hail. Now I had to make a decision. Should I let the car get hailed on and have it possibly get totaled or try to find some cover for it? We’ve been together with this car for over 234,000 miles and it’s just part of our family. I would feel terrible for it if it was hailed on so I hit the gas and slid around the corner and headed for this one implement business. I knew that they had to have some type of cover there and just as the hail was hitting the car so hard that I thought the windows were going to bust, I was lucky and got most of the car under their awning. Now granted I was about an inch away from their building wall, but most of the car was safe. I was parked right beside this brand new Ford truck that was huge and all I could do was to just sit and watch it bounce off it’s front hood. The hail let up for a little bit and then it started up again. This time it was coming more from the side so I pulled out from the awning and re-parked the car and hugged the Ford truck. I thought of it as putting a Ford to good use. 🙂 I don’t know how long this lasted and I was so worried that my back windows were going to break. But nothing did and then the sun came out. Great! I was back on the road again. Then all of a sudden I could hear the bang bang bang again. Really? Hailing again?

A quick shot of the hail today. Some of the yards were white from it

A quick shot of the hail today. Some of the yards were white from it

So now I pulled into a farm yard and stayed as close to the silos that I could. They were on the side of the car that the hail was coming from so they were somewhat protecting the car. Now if I was thinking from the beginning, this farmer also had a shed along the highway that is used for hay storage that’s never full. I could have pulled into there. Finally it was over again for the second time and now to try to get back home. The road had so much hail on it that you could see car track paths on it. And the weather started to be bad around 4:00 and now that it’s around midnight, it’s still lightening and thundering outside. Just crazy. It’s been lightening so much that it almost looked like someone had a strobe light going on outside for awhile. But we could use a little rain and Daryl got the field plowed up today, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m sure that it’s going to green up all the yards and will draw the frost out of the fields. Yup, Spring is finally here!

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Farming and Fish Fry’s

Posted on April 11, 2014 by farm2011

I finally got the first of the two packages that I want to send out for Easter sent today. This package went to Kyle. Now there are a lot of things that I’m not very good at, but I’m just saying that I can pack a very good package to be sent. I’d say just exactly what was in the box, but I don’t want to spoil it for Kyle. Once he gets it delivered to him, then I’ll tell you just how much I got jammed inside.

Kyle's Easter Box

Kyle’s Easter Box – Not pretty but filled to the rim!

I’m also holding my breath to make sure that it gets to him safely. It has his new credit card in it so we’re all wishing it safe travels! Now to start on William’s Easter box this weekend.

When I got home from work today, Daryl asked if I could help him with putting in the new batteries into the tractor. Sure. Doesn’t sound too bad and how long could it take right? Well he said that it’ll take around an hour and that wasn’t the worst thing in the world so off we went. At first there wasn’t much for me to do and after a quick trip to the hardware store for some bolts we were pretty much involved in getting these two new batteries installed. Well, mostly Daryl was involved with it. IMG_1505There wasn’t a lot for me to do to start so I was checking out the shed and watching Daryl. I took a quick picture of what Daryl was doing and he jumped about a foot in the air. When I asked him just what in the world he was jumping for,  he said that I must not have worked around big batteries before.  I kind of shrugged my shoulders and he said that he thought it was sparking. OK, maybe time to shut the flash off for awhile. He only needed my help lifting and getting the batteries back into the right space so I snapped a couple of pictures inside the shed while he was doing his stuff.IMG_1497

Finally the batteries were both in and then he was trying to get the one tire off the tractor. I guess he needs this one tire off so that he could use the tractor tomorrow. He wants to plow if the weather will cooperate and the one tire needs to be off because it’s the side that goes in the furrow. He took the braces off the outside wheel and after whipping a couple of donuts with the tractor in the yard – all the wheels were still on. IMG_1507Isn’t that just how it goes? So he left the tractor for now and time to get cleaned up for tonight’s fish fry. We were going to have to go along tonight because our partners in this Roamin’ Catholics adventure were busy tonight. We were going to head to  Ridgeway’s fish fry at the Fireman Inn. We laughed when we got inside and was waiting for a table because we knew about 1/2 of the people eating there. I guess there are a lot of people doing the same thing that we do on Friday nights. And honestly – why wouldn’t you? We have the best time every Friday and are always sad when Lent is over. The food was excellent and I can’t hardly believe that next week is Good Friday already. Man that time went fast.

The picture of the day is the rolling guards for the cultivator. OK, I know that they are just pieces of the equipment, but they do look kind of cool don’t you think? IMG_1495

 

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I’m just saying..

Posted on April 10, 2014 by farm2011

When I was little and growing up we never, absolutely never, got to light any types of fires. We never lit candles (other than birthday ones) and honestly I don’t ever remember even having a fire barrel. Now I’m sure we did because pretty much everyone has fire barrels to burn their trash, but I don’t really ever remember one when I was growing up. Maybe our parents lit it?   So tonight when I was coming home from town to pick up some Easter things for Kyle’s classroom in Korea, I noticed as I turned the corner this kind of a glow across the section. I thought, what in the world is that? Then I figured out that it was one of our neighbors burning their set aside farm acres.  Now thinking about how we grew up and deathly afraid of fires,there is no way on this whole earth that I would even consider sleeping tonight with this fire going if I was this farmer! I’m just saying.DSCN8258

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It’ s off to the Vet we go

Posted on April 9, 2014 by farm2011

When we got Kaiser we knew that he didn’t have any of his shots or his puppy check up so I made an appointment at our local vet office to start the process. I’ve been to this vets office before with some of our cats and our dogs, so I was pretty comfortable going there again with the puppy. But since I was going I thought I might as well take both of the dogs. Reno needed her 6 month check up for heart worms so I also made sure that they had time to look at both of them. I was kind of thinking that this was going to work taking both of them, but I wasn’t 100% sure. So after work tonight I beat it home to get the dogs out for a little while, comb out the burrs in Reno’s hair (I mean we were going to town and everything!) and then to try to coax them both into the truck. As soon as I put Reno’s leash on – she immediately became paralyzed. She went totally limp and for some reason neither her legs or her back worked anymore. She could only lay on the porch and look over at the edge at me. Kind of pathetic. But time was a ticking and I was already behind schedule, so I picked her up and half walked and half carried her across the yard to the truck. If someone would have driven by they would have wondered just what in the world was going on now!  I already put Kaiser into the truck and he was sitting pretty good. Then I had got Reno’s front feet into the truck and I grabbed her backside and gave it a push. After I knew no one was going to get caught into the door – Bam! I shut the door. I ran around the to other side and climbed in. Instantly I had Reno slobbering not only my arm but also Kaiser who was sitting directly underneath her. And both of them decided that they wanted to sit as close or almost on top of me when I drove. Reno’s teeth were grinding and she had this little shaking thing going on at first, but once we were down the road a couple of miles the only thing that she was doing was the slobbering thing. Finally we made it to the vets office and they both did a great job.IMG_1474 I was hoping that Reno wouldn’t have an ‘accident’ when we were walking up to the front door and she came into the office like a trooper. When it was all said and done, they both sat so nice on the way home I couldn’t believe it. What a good job done!

When I got home, Daryl was working on cleaning out the cow yard. He was worried that the fields were too soft to haul manure, but it must have worked because he ended up hauling a couple of loads out.IMG_1482 Then he put the blade on the tractor and leveled out our driveway. During the winter the driveway can get washed out and pretty uneven, so blading it makes it level again for awhile.IMG_1484

As for me? Well I made some more cookies tonight. I tried to make a batch last night and to say that I was unsuccessful would be an understatement. Last night I couldn’t read the recipe on the bag of chips so I kind of guessed how much flour to put into it. Now to my defense I could see a 4, and even though that sounded like a crazy amount of flour to put in.. it did say a 4. So I beat the butter and sugars, added vanilla and eggs, then it was time to add the dry ingredients. I had this bowl of flour, salt, and baking soda and it sure looked like it wasn’t even going to fit into the bowl. But it did say 4 so I started to dump it into the mixer. At first it wasn’t too bad. But then, I knew something was wrong. My mixer was going burrrthump burrrthump and the batter was just going around in the bowl likes some type of medieval weapon or something. So finally I thought I better look up this recipe on the internet. I did have the “4” part right, but it was 2 1/4 cups not 4 cups. I tried to scoop out some of the flour and then I put in some more salt and baking soda into the bowl. But when I baked the first couple of pans last night I knew that I might as well start over another day. I didn’t have the chickens locked up yet for the night so I put everything back into the bowl and headed for the chicken coop. I’m guessing the cookies didn’t last long with the all the chickens and if you get eggs from our farm the next couple dozens just might taste like chocolate 🙂 So tonight I looked up the recipe BEFORE I started to bake and they turned out just fine. IMG_1488

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Chiropractors, Churches, and Cats

Posted on April 7, 2014 by farm2011

Chiropractors

I knew that I needed to get to the Chiropractor these past few weeks and I had made an appointment for tonight earlier last week.  Now if you’re like me you know when it’s time to actually go. As for me, well my neck was making this kind of crunching sound and my back? Well let’s just say when I showed Daryl how my spine moved he said ‘that’s not normal is it?’ So off I went to Cresco. This Chiropractor has been the one that both William and I have gone to for the past how many years and we really think he goes a great job. But I had to laugh because the waiting room chairs were filled with people tonight for their appointments and I knew that when I was in his office getting adjusted  it was taking way too long. The reason is because both the Chiropractor and his wife (the assistant) really like William and was wondering how he was doing. William spent a good part of one summer going to appointments there to  get adjusted and was even put into traction to get his back and neck back into alignment. And because William can talk to pretty much everyone, they got to know him pretty good. So we talked about how William was doing in college, how his girlfriend was doing, what he was going to do this summer, …. well you get the picture. And when I finally got out of the room I could just feel the people staring at me. Now maybe it was my imagination, but for my sake I didn’t make any eye contact with any of them.

Churches

On my way back to Lawler I hesitated when I was coming up to the sign on the road for the Stone Church. Now I’ve seen this sign quite a bit in the past but haven’t ever gone to see just exactly what this church was all about. Then I thought, well I was just at the Smallest Church a couple of weeks ago, do I really want to see another church? I mean what could possibly make it so different that the other churches?  But I was only me tonight  in the car and I found myself cranking the wheel and heading east onto the next highway. And for an instant I thought that I was going to be lost, but then as I turned on this one gravel road I saw this lonely church out in the country.IMG_1462 It’s kind of weird to say, but it was really almost beautiful. The church was standing all by itself without a roof but still looking proud just as a rain storm was moving into the area. I don’t know a thing about why this church was there and I did find this information to explain it a little bit. IMG_1451There are some really old gravestones that are on one side of the church IMG_1459and when you walk inside it just almost takes your breath away.

Wouldn't this be a cool place for a wedding?

Wouldn’t this be a cool place for a wedding?

OK, I know that this is pretty dramatic, but I’m telling you that it was about the coolest thing that I’ve seen in a long time. And as you can see by the amount of the pictures that I took, I really was glad that I stopped here.IMG_1460

When I got home I could see that the rain already passed and Daryl was working on moving around some farm equipment. Every year it’s the same thing. He brings out the tractors and other equipment to get them washed off from the winter and see if there is any repairs that will need to get done before field work starts. And when it’s about time to use them, the yard seems more crowded than it was in the beginning of spring. This year the farmers will probably get in the field a little later than normal. I took a picture of one of the ditches that I saw tonight on my way home.

Snow still in the ditches and a lot of it!

Snow still in the ditches and a lot of it!

Yea, with that much snow we’ll need to warm up soon to get all the frost out of the fields.

Cats

Well it was bound to happen. Little Kitty got in a brawl with someone and got her back all scraped up last night. I’m not sure if it was another Tom Cat or if it was Kaiser playing rough- but either way the scratch isn’t too bad, but it’ll take some time to grow the hair back!IMG_1471

And for the photo of the day I chose a picture that I took tonight of the church. I only had my little pocket camera with me, but I’m king of digging this photo!  I think if you stare at the clouds in the back of the church it almost seems like they are moving. IMG_1457

Posted in Farm animals, Picture of the day, Places to visit | 1 Comment

Getting groceries – Sunday

Posted on April 6, 2014 by farm2011

I needed to keep space in our refrigerator until the baby shower was over because I wanted the space for thawing out the frozen lasagna. So this morning when I looked just what was in there – well not so much. Of course left over lasagna, a couple of cupcakes, and beef jerky. Yup, that’s about it.  I decided that I better do something about this, so after I got some coupons organized, off to Decorah I went for groceries. It’s not that far from us, and on Sunday it’s about the closest place that’s open to buy groceries. I didn’t buy too much, but I did buy the garden seeds for this year. I’m so hoping that I have better luck than last year. I honestly don’t think it could ever get worse. So when I was picking out the seeds for this year  it took me forever to find just the ones that I wanted. And it was one of those times when you think you found the ‘best’ one and then you looked some more and found even better ones. Honestly, I just need something that can hold it’s own against the weeds! Finally I checked out and grabbed a quick sandwich to go. The sandwich turned out a little messier than I was hoping so I thought I’d kill some time and go out to see how the fish hatchery and the Bald Eagles are doing. It seemed to be a perfect quiet spot to scarf down my sandwich. OK, there were almost more people there than at Walmart. (just joking!) But there were a lot of people on the bike path just pulling up to see the fish or a group of people were looking at the bald eagle in the tree. If you have not heard about these Eagles, it started a couple of years ago when there was a live stream web cam filming this one family of bald eagles. And the story went viral! Even Kyle in Korea overheard some people talking about the eagles in Iowa. Crazy! It was the most viewed live-stream of all time in 2011 when the website reached 250 million views on Ustream, with roughly 2.4 million views per day. I was just checking the information out on the web and if you go to Wikipedia which is a web based dictionary – Decorah Bald Eagles is part of the dictionary now.  On Wikipedia it identifies all the birds by their names so you can keep track of when which one was born and such. OK, now people make fun of me for naming all my animals, these Bald Eagle stuff really kicks it up a notch don’t you think? But it’s something to watch and it definitely has caught a lot of peoples interest, so it must not be all that bad. We have quite a few Bald Eagles by our farm and I really don’t like them to get too close. I used to get worried about them taking our chickens and cats, but now that Kaiser is smaller than some of our chickens, I sure hope they don’t start looking at him too!  I only stayed a few minutes at the hatchery and then I checked out to see if anyone was trout fishing. This is also really popular around Decorah and the trout stream is usually stocked a couple of times a year with fresh fish. But only one person was out fishing today. I guess maybe everyone else was watching the birds.

Just some of the people hanging out today watching the Decorah Bald Eagles

Just some of the people hanging out today watching the Decorah Bald Eagles

When I got home Daryl was busy with getting the grain wagons ready to haul corn into town and then he was working on scraping out the cow yard. IMG_1450The fields were too soft to haul manure today and it was funny because there was still ice in the cow yard making it too hard for Daryl to get it all scraped. What a crazy year! I put a roast in the crock pot for sandwiches tomorrow night and then I also headed outside to work on cleaning up some of the yard. I was able to later get some of the seeds planted tonight so when the garden is ready, I will also be!DSCN8254I only have the vegetables planted and hopefully tomorrow night I’ll get the flowers started too. I have them set up now in the laundry room, but I’m thinking it might not have enough sun during the day.

I know that the seeds are planted pretty thick, but I can transplant them when they come up to other pots

I know that the seeds are planted pretty thick, but I can transplant them when they come up to other pots

I guess I’ll wait and see if the table gets moved to the back room. I sure hope I don’t have to because it’s not going to be that fun moving everything. But I want these seeds to grow, so I guess I’ll have to do it if it comes down to it.

Have you ever had one of those days that seemed to last a long time? Time today was like when you were a kid and it seemed to go on forever. Well that’s how my day went today for me and it was great!

The picture of the day is Decorah’s Bald Eagle. IMG_1447a

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What a fun day! Baby Shower

Posted on April 5, 2014 by farm2011

Everyone was planning to be at the farm around 11:00 this morning for my niece’s baby shower and I wanted to make sure that everything was ready for it. So when the alarm went off early this morning, I just knew that I needed to get up and get some things done before everyone came. So after I worked in the house and the sun finally came up, out I went to see what I should do quick.

I was up early this morning making sure that I would be ready

I was up early this morning making sure that I would be ready

I also tried to take a picture of how cool the grass looked this morning. I don’t know, maybe it always looks like this and I just never take the time to check it out. But it was  such a frosty night last night that just as the sun was coming up the frost on the grass just sparkled. As I was trying to get a ‘good’ picture, I finally came to the realization that it just wasn’t going to work and so I got a close up of the frost this morning on the grass.

The morning frost in the yard this morning

The morning frost in the yard this morning

After I put out the plates & silverware, and a couple of other things were done, Daryl went into to town to get a propane cylinder for our heater. Because it was pretty chilly last night, the Roadhouse was also pretty chilly. He also was on a mission to get me a Diet Coke. I needed one this morning to wake up! But when he came back he noticed that the cylinder threads didn’t look right and he didn’t want to use it. I heard him say something that he didn’t want to blow up or something.  Nope, not a good idea. Especially today! Back to town he went and got one that was threaded right. Just as he got the heater started, my sister, niece (Mom to be) and my nephews wife came. I wasn’t quite ready yet, so they also brought some decorations to be put up and they worked on that while I was in the house. But soon the cars started coming and coming. How fun! And I laughed when I saw Daryl helping people park cars in the yard. What a good guy.  I so would have loved to have him wear one of the parking vests that they wear at sporting events. I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t be caught dead in it, but it would have been funny just to see his face when I handed it to him. But with having around 35 people coming today, the yard did have a lot of cars in it and I must admit they were also pretty organized. While he was helping outside, I was still inside the house. I told my sister that I was going to make the lasagna for the party and I was pretty worried that it wasn’t going to get done in time. I bought 4 of the mega size frozen ones from the store and when I was putting the first two into the oven, I read that the time increased that is needed to cook the second one by around 25 minutes! What !! OK, so if I put in 4 boxes in how long would it take? I had the roaster out to put the garlic bread in and thought why couldn’t I make two of the pans of lasagna in the roaster? Should work right? Whew.. they fit in the pan and it actually did work. But I was pretty nervous up to the point when we were going to eat to make sure that it was done. We had quite a spread and we even set up an additional table for the food today. DSCN8237After some introductions and games, my niece opened the baby gifts. Holy Cow they sure make nice baby stuff anymore.

Opening gifts

Opening gifts

She was excited to get quite a few things that they needed and it was fun to see all the little baby clothes.DSCN8246 They are having a boy and when I looked at how little the clothes were I just can’t imagine when our kids were that little. Some of the kids helped me out by getting Kaiser out and playing with him for awhile. The weather was absolutely beautiful so they were more than willing to help with that. And seeing how much they played with him, I’m thinking he’s going to take a nap when everyone leaves. I was impressed because even Little Kitty hung out for awhile. Now granted he just mostly laid in the warm sun, but he still made an appearance.

Little Kitty spent most of the day sleeping on a bench outside the Roadhouse

Little Kitty spent most of the day sleeping on a bench outside the Roadhouse

After the gifts were opened, everyone grabbed a quick snack and then the party was over just as quick as it started. With getting help taking down the chairs and the tables, the room was cleaned up and people were packing their things up to head home. My niece’s Mother in law told me how nice it was to see our family again. She said the last time that we saw each other was the wedding and the first time our families met was the bridal shower. And now? Well, it the baby shower. I think it’s kind of cool you how meet other families and you get to know & hang out with a them.  OK, so everyone was getting their stuff lined up and my sister who makes these killer cupcakes was ready to head back home. I said that I would take a couple for Daryl (key word here is Daryl) so when I looked how many she left – it was a plateful! They are cupcakes from scratch filled with fresh strawberry creme filling.

Yum...

Yum…

Well let’s just say that the plate is getting pretty empty and I don’t think Daryl had even one yet! Now that the day is over I was really pleased how it all went and I think everyone had a good time. And I don’t know if you do this, but after everything is over and done with you think about the day. Well as I was doing this I just had to laugh to myself. There was this one guest that stopped me when she was just leaving and said that he had to tell me something funny. She lives only about 10 miles from us and when she was at work last week she kept asking her coworkers if they knew how to get to the Roadhouse? They said they never heard of it and she told them that she didn’t either but it was on the invitation and it said Lawler, so it must be a restaurant or party place because she was going there for this baby shower on Saturday. Nope, no one had heard of it. She said she was pretty confused but thought since the town isn’t very big she for sure should find it. So she was driving around our town trying to find this party shed and just couldn’t find it. I think she must have called another guest or something because she did eventually make it to our farm. I think that’s pretty funny! I would have died laughing if she would have stopped at our one and only gas station and asked. Daryl’s niece works there and she could have given directions. I told her that when she gets to work on Monday she’ll have to tell the others at her work that the Roadhouse was at a farm. She just laughed and said that she will have to do that.

The picture of the day is some of the old milk cans that we had on the farm. I like how the sunlight caught the frost on them this morning.DSCN8226

Posted in Family, Farm animals, Picture of the day, Projects completed | 2 Comments